Clarifying

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈklæɹɪfaɪ.ɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The process of removing confusion or ambiguity to present information in a more understandable way
2. The action taken to improve comprehension by explaining details or meanings more plainly
3. Making something easier to understand by removing uncertainty or obscurity

Etymology: "Clarifying" is the present participle of "clarify," and it inherits the verb's core idea of making something clear. The verb came into Middle English as "clarifien," borrowed through Old French "clarifiier" from Latin "clārificāre," which combined "clārus," meaning "clear" or "bright," with "facere," meaning "to make." So the word literally means "to make clear," a blunt construction that English speakers have used for centuries. The Latin root was originally about light and brightness before it came to mean clearing up a muddle of ideas. Medieval writers used "clarifien" for making liquids pure, as in refining wine or clearing a cloudy solution, and the sense of removing impurities gradually gave way to making a matter intelligible. The same transfer from the physical to the mental happened with many words of this type, and the modern figurative sense of making something easier to understand grew directly out of that older meaning of making things transparent.

Synonyms: explaining, elucidating, explicating, illustrating, defining

Antonyms: confusing, obscuring, misleading, complicating, clouding